Minutes
January 22, 2007
Meeting was attended by Steering Committee, two stewards and the GPSO liaison
Health care committee meets for the first time tomorrow. We were not informed despite the fact that Theobald said we had a seat on the committee and would inform us when they were to meet. What do we want to do about that? Emily suggests that one or more than one person show up at the meeting to see what they say and whether they will officially tell us we have no seat. Jon (?) will stop by Theobald's office tomorrow morning and see what he has to say.
Jon did some analysis in response to the GPSO health care initiative. He collected the insurance plans from the universities listed, and statistically we aren't doing that bad. That does mean, though, that grad students are being exploited everywhere. In terms of cost for insurance, IU is about middle of the road, but this doesn't take into consideration what the insurance covers (some cover dental, for example). Then he looked at the initiative and the numbers proposed by the GPSO. Basically, it works out that we are paying for the dental insurance (approx. 200 bucks) although the University will kick in about 200 more dollars too. The real benefit (but controversial) is that students will pay more, but the cost will help cover spouses and dependents.
Paul, from the GPSO, tells us that the International office is trying to break away from the University's subsidized health insurance because they rarely use their insurance, and so help subsidize ours. They want to use the crappy student voluntary insurance. So one plan now is to create a universal insurance for the university for about 900 bucks, with a soft waiver, which will allow the subsidizing of employee benefits and allow for the inclusion of dental insurance. This will not happen this year, but we might be able to get dental. But in the short term, the International Office wants to separate.
So what are we going to do?? Pick someone else besides Theobald to start a dialogue with? Paul mentions that we should approach the Chief of Staff in the provost's office. The new dean of the grad school is also more open to these topics than others. He is also on the health committee and is new (always a good thing). Amelia Martins is a Biology prof and associate dean of grad students working under the Dean of Arts and Sciences. Writing to the Trustees is also a good idea and one that we're already working on.
Plans for the semester
Goals: health care situation amelioration, dental care push
But to do these things, we need publicity and outreach. To do this, we are thinking of a GEO benefit concert (Emily is waiting for an estimate of cost for musicians) where
GEO literature will be available and get our name out there. We also talked about visible things around campus that can increase awareness (e.g. armbands, banner drops).
What sort of other creative ideas do you have?
Vanessa has an idea about publicity and awareness in the alumni and publicity affecting the parent's of incoming students. New student orientation rallies might be a good way as we approach the connection between our insurance levels and their education or their insurance (a bunch of them do sign up for the voluntary plan). We might also try to run ads in the IDS during orientation week. Emily will look into finding out how much that might cost so we can write up another proposal for IUSA.
Ursula has gotten info about insurance at other universities. At this point, only IU doesn't have dental. Purdue, the school to which IU is most compared, has MegaLife dental even. The Budget and International offices have done comparisons of the dental plans in the Big 10.
For outsourcing: There is a rally on Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at the Unitarian church. From there, they will move across from the b-ball game. So for labor solidarity, some of us will go.
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